In 1942, the 82nd Infantry Division at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, was split in two. One of the new divisions began intense preparations and training for a surprise landing on the Nazi-occupied European continent. The location was Normandy, France; the date was June 6, 1944; and the division was the 101st Airborne: the legendary "band of brothers."
This is the story of that divisions heroic performance on D-Day, and right up to the Allied victory in Europe. Filled with historic images, many never before published, it is also a tribute to the fallen men of the 101st--the artists and athletes, scientists and mathematicians, architects and builders whose sacrifice secured the future but left the human race much diminished. Theirs is an accomplishment well-known but rarely so dramatically depicted: Here is the 101st landing on Utah Beach, coming in by parachute, or glider, or from the sea. Stirring words and pictures capture the landing, linking the Utah and Omaha beachheads; the divisions breaking of the German drive to the coast; and their brilliant stand at Bastogne; a refusal to yield so famously summed up in the commanders reply to a German call for surrender: "Nuts."
